Documentation

influx setup

Works with InfluxDB OSS 2.x

The influx setup command initiates the setup process for InfluxDB OSS 2.x instances. The command does not work with InfluxDB Cloud.

The influx setup command walks through the initial InfluxDB OSS setup process, creating a default user, organization, and bucket.

The Operator token created in the InfluxDB setup process has full read and write access to all organizations in the database.

Usage

influx setup [flags]

Flags

FlagDescriptionData typeMaps to ?
-c--active-configCLI configuration to use for commandstring
-b--bucketPrimary bucket namestring
--configs-pathPath to influx CLI configurations (default ~/.influxdbv2/configs)stringINFLUX_CONFIGS_PATH
-f--forceSkip confirmation prompt
-h--helpHelp for the setup command
--hostHTTP address of InfluxDB (default http://localhost:8086)stringINFLUX_HOST
--http-debugInspect communication with InfluxDB servers.string
-o--orgPrimary organization namestring
-p--passwordPassword for primary userstring
-r--retentionDuration bucket will retain data (0 is infinite, default is 0)duration
--skip-verifySkip TLS certificate verificationINFLUX_SKIP_VERIFY
-t--tokenToken for admin user (auto-generated by default)stringINFLUX_TOKEN
-u--usernamePrimary usernamestring

Valid --retention units are nanoseconds (ns), microseconds (us or µs), milliseconds (ms), seconds (s), minutes (m), hours (h), days (d), and weeks (w).

Examples

Set up InfluxDB interactively with prompts for required information
influx setup
Set up InfluxDB with all required information and skip confirmation
influx setup \
  --org example-org \
  --bucket example-bucket \
  --username example-user \
  --password ExAmPl3PA55W0rD \
  --force  

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New in InfluxDB 3.5

Key enhancements in InfluxDB 3.5 and the InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3.

See the Blog Post

InfluxDB 3.5 is now available for both Core and Enterprise, introducing custom plugin repository support, enhanced operational visibility with queryable CLI parameters and manual node management, stronger security controls, and general performance improvements.

InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3 brings powerful new capabilities including Dashboards (beta) for saving and organizing your favorite queries, and cache querying for instant access to Last Value and Distinct Value caches—making Explorer a more comprehensive workspace for time series monitoring and analysis.

For more information, check out:

InfluxDB Docker latest tag changing to InfluxDB 3 Core

On November 3, 2025, the latest tag for InfluxDB Docker images will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments.

If using Docker to install and run InfluxDB, the latest tag will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments. For example, if using Docker to run InfluxDB v2, replace the latest version tag with a specific version tag in your Docker pull command–for example:

docker pull influxdb:2

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